For the third time since the beginning of the full-scale war, educators have managed to successfully organize and conduct testing of graduates who will become university students this year. Air raids, shelling, power outages – all these factors could not prevent the NMT, which for many applicants became the only opportunity to enter the dream university.
At the same time, the results of the independent evaluation themselves cause anxiety and sadness: they are significantly lower than the results of previous years.
As you can see, the number of 200-score students is rapidly decreasing – 3,10,208 participants (at least for one subject) in 2022 to 2,999 in 2024. It is also worth considering the number of students who wrote an independent test. In 2022, their number was significantly lower – 218 thousand against 280 thousand in the current year. The situation is even worse around the comprehensive success rate of graduates. In 2022, 564 participants received a score of 200 points for all NMT subjects, this year only 7 students passed the maximum test. The gap, as we can see, is colossal. And it testifies to the decline in the quality of education, which Ukrainian schoolchildren obtained mostly offline last school year. However, the frequent alarms that forced children to sit for hours in bomb shelters, unsuitable for conducting classes, became apparent. A large volume of material was not mastered.
The distribution of maximum grades by subjects is also indicative. The most successful was the English language test, with which 1,513 students managed 200 points. Should we say that this subject is traditionally mastered with tutors. Therefore, it is correct to associate the results not with schools, but with individual activities of schoolchildren. In second place is mathematics (1131 marks “out of 200 points”) – it is also a traditionally tutored subject. Quite often, parents request the services of tutors for the Ukrainian language – 606 assessments of “200 points”. On the other hand, the NMT participants showed very low results in chemistry, physics and geography, which no student mastered to the maximum.
It is also worth paying attention to the fact that 14.37% of schoolchildren this year did not overcome the threshold barrier and will not be able to enter their dream universities. For comparison, in 2022, 93% of registered participants passed the national multi-subject test in Ukraine. Of those who took the test, approximately 4% failed to complete the required number of math tasks, and less than 0.1% failed the Ukrainian language test. Another 29 participants were deprived of the right to assemble due to the use of prohibited materials and devices.
As you can see, the percentage of participants who did not pass the threshold score was much lower in the first year of the war.
In the pre-war year 2021, the situation was also threatening: 31.11% of participants did not pass the final exam in mathematics, 8.33% in physics, 10.68% in English, 15.79% in Spanish, 11.49% in German and French — 8.94%. However, due to the variability of the test results, a larger number of participants could still apply for a wide competition for universities.
This year, not only educators, but also representatives of other critically important industries took part in the organization of the process. The Ministry of Energy of Ukraine, Ukrenergo, DTEK and other operators of the energy supply market did everything possible to minimize the risks of lack of electricity in the examination centers on the days of the tests. At the same time, heads of educational institutions together with education administrations decided to connect generators to ensure uninterrupted power supply. In addition, Internet service providers have made efforts to guarantee a reliable connection, without which it is impossible to conduct online computer testing.
The results of this year’s NMT demonstrate a significant drop in academic performance among Ukrainian graduates, which is an alarming signal for the country’s educational system. Despite the heroic efforts of educators, energy workers, and other involved services, the difficult conditions of wartime, such as constant air raids, power outages and forced training in bomb shelters, negatively affected the quality of learning the material. The decrease in the number of students who received the maximum points and the increase in the percentage of those who did not overcome the threshold point indicate the need for additional measures to support and adapt the educational process to current challenges.
